Libya

We are ready to start the fight in Tripoli and everywhere else, and rise against them. All of these germs, rats and scumbags, they are not Libyans, ask anyone. they have co-operated with Nato ... Gaddafi won't leave the land of his ancestors.

No-one could justify what went on under Gaddafi's regime … awkward relationships are sometimes preferable to the alternative dangers of isolation and mutual enmity ... The disclosures last weekend will raise widespread concern that the judgments made were wrong.

There is no question that Gaddafi forces were involved in war crimes and serious human rights violations in Misrata and that some Tawarghas fought alongside Gaddafi forces. But anyone responsible should be brought to justice in fair trials; not dragged out of hospital beds on the assumption that all Tawarghas are 'killers' and 'mercenaries'. The whole population should not have to suffer.

"One of the ideas we're contemplating is the [rebels' Transitional National Council] stays in Benghazi rather than here, and the executive office will be here. We suffered a lot from a centralised government."

9.07am: A group of Syrian soldiers who defected to the opposition Free Officers' Movement have called on the international community to impose a no-fly zone to protect civilians against the crackdown of the Assad regime.

Leading Syrian dissident Ammar Abdulhamid says the video message it is the first official statement given in the presence of all its senior leaders.

Muammar Gaddafi has issued a defiant message from hiding in which he vowed "never to leave the land of his ancestors" and denied claims he had fled the country for neighbouring Niger.

The telephone message, broadcast on Syria's Arrai TV station, is believed to have come from within Libya ...

The former leader of Libya said he expected a new uprising in the capital. "The youths are now ready to escalate the resistance against the 'rats' [rebels] in Tripoli and to finish off the mercenaries," Gaddafi said.

"All of these germs, rats and scumbags, they are not Libyans; ask anyone. They have cooperated with Nato," he said.

Arrai TV last broadcast a message by Gaddafi, who has not been seen in public for months, at the start of September, when he urged followers to "keep fighting" and promised to turn Libya "into a hell".

In the new message, Gaddafi denied reports that he had fled to Niger in a column of vehicles heading across the border. Referring to himself in the third person, Gaddafi said: "Columns of convoys drive into and out of Niger carrying goods, and people inside and outside [of Libya] say Gaddafi is going to Niger," he said. "This is not the first time that convoys drive in and out of Niger."

Dr Faisal, head of Tripoli university, said: "This place maybe was used to do something illegal. We have to confirm it but all the facts that indicate that it was something related, I don't want to say rape, but sexual behaviour, are there."

In huge warehouses in an abandoned military camp on the outskirts of al-Ajelat, a town about 50 miles west of Tripoli, thousands of suits to protect against nuclear, chemical and biological weapons lie stacked in boxes. There are row upon row of boxes of gas masks, as well as flamethrowers, and thousands of antipersonnel and antitank mines, as well as sea mines, all completely unguarded.

"I don't know why I am here. I was just picked up and brought here," Victor from Liberia says. He was one of 700 prisoners packed into a filthy prison and suspect of crimes against the revolution, the report said. Pannel also speaks to a woman who claim she was raped by Gaddafi's security chief Mansour Dhao, who fled to Niger on Sunday. Nisrine Gheriyanih, one of Muammar Gaddafi's female bodyguards, told Martin Chulov the same in his piece in today's Guardian.

12.27pm: Gaddafi loyalists fired at least 10 rockets from Bani Walid, a town south-east of Tripoli that has been given until Saturday to surrender, AP reports.

The barrage followed early morning skirmishing in the same area.Smoke billowed from where the projectiles landed in Wadi Dinar, about 12 miles outside the town. The former rebels said the projectiles fired were Grad rockets.

Thousands of fighters for Libya's new leadership have converged on Bani Walid. Officials have said a number of prominent regime loyalists, including Gadhafi's son and one-time heir apparent Seif al-Islam, are believed to be inside.

2day I saw some #libya(n) families at beach of #tripoli hanging out. Very hot here. Life more& more getting normal. Traffic Jam.

12.36pm: Nour Ali (a pseudonym) writes with news of army defections in Syria:

Violent clashes have broken out between defected and loyal soldiers in the province of Deraa this morning, according to the Local Co-ordination Committees, which monitor protests in the country. They say the violence broke out after a raid on Busr al-Harir village was planned.

Information on the level of defections from the military is sketchy and hard to confirm but activists say an increasing number of soldiers are escaping from the army. "The regime has never fully trusted the army; it has always sent security agents and the shabiha [ghosts - pro-Assad militia] to watch over them," said one Damascus-based activist speaking on condition of anonymity.

Some defecting soldiers are protecting groups of demonstrators, leading to some fighting back against government forces. But despite the founding of a Free Officers' Movement, activists say networks between groups are limited, meaning that many unhappy soldiers can only desert rather than defect. The upper echelons of the army, populated by loyalists to the ruling Assad family, also remains tight knit.

• Rebel fighters have clashed with Gaddafi loyalists around the fugitive leader's two strongholds of Sirte and Bani Walid. On the east of Sirte rebel positions were shelled (see 1.25pm), and loyalist fired at least 10 rockets from Bani Walid (12.27pm). Nato bombarded Sirte and Waddan, in the south, on Wednesday.

• Moussa Koussa Libya's former foreign minister who defected to Britain in March, has tried unsuccessfully to join the new interim government, according to a report (see 10.38am). "He has blood on his hands, no one will touch him," Guma el-Gamaty, London spokesman of NTC spokesman told the Times.

Syria

Clashes broke out between defected and loyal soldiers in Deraa amid continuing, but sketchy, reports of military defections (see 12.36pm). A video address by the Free Officers Movement called on the international community to impose a no-fly zone over Syria to protect civilians (9.07am).

The calls comes after Algeria gave sanctuary to Gaddafi's wife, daughter and two of his sons, and Niger is reported to have given safe have to his security chief Mansour Dhao.

Amnesty reminded Libya's neighbours that Gaddafi, his son Saif al-Islam and his intelligence chief Abdullah al-Sanussi, are are accused of crimes against humanity.

Claudio Cordone, senior director at Amnesty, said:

No country should provide a safe haven to Colonel Gaddafi or others suspected of committing crimes under international law. All African states should reaffirm their commitment to ending impunity for the most serious crimes under international law.

This includes arresting and surrendering all ICC suspects to The Hague.

If they are found outside Libya, national authorities in that country must immediately arrest them and hand them over to the ICC to face trial for these crimes.

2.53pm:Ian Traynor writes from Brussels that, with the UN mandate for the Nato campaign against Muammar Gaddafi lapsing in a couple of weeks, the Americans are hopeful of closure, but also adamant that the attacks will continue if need be.

We're clearly near the end of the operation," said Ivo Daalder, the US ambassador at Nato headquarters in Brussels, referring to the 26 September deadline.

But he told reporters: "We will maintain the operation as long as the regime or its elements continue to pose a threat to civilians."

The issue was not especially whether Gaddafi had been captured, killed, or removed from Libya, but whether loyalist forces were still a menace to Libyan civilians, Daalder said.

"It isn't clear that if he were to be taken out that the whole thing would necessarily collapse; we just don't know that. We do know that if he doesn't have the capability to pose a threat to civilians, then it doesn't really matter."

2.56pm: Hosni Mubarak, the former president of Egypt, has been back in court again today in his trial on charges of killing protesters during the uprising against his government earlier this year.

Police Commander Essam Sawky has been giving evidence this morning, according to Al Masry. Unlike some of the other witnesses so far, he has given damning testimony about Habib al-Adly, the former interior minister who is on trial alongside Mubarak.

Sawky said Adly and his aides ordered the killing of protesters, ordering they be dispersed by any means necessary. He armed police officers with automatic weapons, Sawky told the court, and ordered the internet and phone services cut.

Sawky said he warned the public prosecutor to seize all Central Security Forces records before they could be damaged, Al Masry reports.

Refaat yesterday ordered that Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, Egypt's de facto military ruler since the revolution, be summoned to give evidence at Mubarak's trial on Sunday. But the session will be held behind closed doors, with no press or public allowed. Mohamed Adel, an activist with the April 6 movement which helped lead the anti-Mubarak uprising, said:

The decision to summon Field Marshal Tantawi and the others is certainly a good thing, but the session has to be public in order to be fair. We have to see it, and the concept of a publishing ban and secrecy is totally rejected by us.

3.05pm: The Associated Press news agency has some full quotes from the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who was critical of the Syrian government yesterday. Ahmadinejad said "there should be talks" between the government of Bashar al-Assad and its opponents, adding: "A military solution is never the right solution." AP writes:

There has been speculation that Tehran is providing funds to cushion Assad's government as it burns through the $17bn (£10.6bn) in foreign reserves that the government had at the start of the uprising.

But Iran cannot prop up the regime indefinitely, and Ahmadinejad's comments on Wednesday were sure to contribute to the growing unease in Damascus.

3.48pm: The Local Co-ordination Committees, which monitor protests in Syria, have been reporting on demonstrations and attacks by the security services there on their Facebook page today.

In Homs, security forces and "armed thugs" have been conducting random arrests and detentions, according to the LCCs. Gunfire has been heard in the neighbourhood of Bab Houd and the old city. Houses were stormed in Baba Amr "accompained by shooting and sounds of explosions". There are random arrests near the university dorms and cars and buses are being inspected. The activists have posted a video of shelling in the Warsheh and Bab Tadmor areas. It shows a tank and a burning car in a deserted street.

In Latakia, many young people were arrested by the security services, the LCCs say. There were also random arrests in Deraa.

In Hama, the security forces are raiding houses and arresting people, they say.

In Idlib, there were arrests in Maaret al-Nouman, and the village of Ebleen was stormed using heavy weapons, in order to arrest defecting soldiers.

The defection of soldiers raises the prospect of the opposition movement morphing from protest to armed rebellion, but my colleague Nour Ali (a pseudonym) tells me that is unlikely for now. She says the army may be fraying around the edges and at low levels, but there is as yet no group for them to join for an organised fightback – the importance of the Free Officers' Movement can be oversold, she says.

But the defections will cause more clashes and violence, which in turn will strengthen the government's hand in terms of its claims that "armed gangs" are behind the protests.

The defections, though, are important, Nour argues, because they suggest that more of the army is disloyal than often thought.

Reuters had a good piece on this yesterday, arguing that despite the "flurry of desertions" the army's "overall clout seems unaffected".

"Low-level army defections appear to be on the increase, but they are still not affecting the effectiveness of military operations," a diplomat in the Syrian capital said.

Nikolaos van Dam, a Dutch scholar of Syrian politics and a former senior foreign ministry official, told Reuters that defections from the army were continuing, but as long as they remained modest in scope, involved no loss of heavy weaponry or senior officers, there would be little danger to Assad. Such important defections were key to the rebels' successes in Libya.

"And if there were to be any sort of military threat to the regime, senior officers would stick together even more," he said, noting that the fate of many top commanders was closely tied to that of Assad.

"Any attempt at an internal coup would be extremely dangerous for those contemplating it. If they were discovered they would be quickly shot."

Reuters says hundreds of mostly Sunni rank and file soldiers have defected recently; scores of other conscripts have been shot for refusing to fire at protesters, while others "have simply deserted and dropped out of sight". Army attacks on mosques in Hama and Deir Ezzor seem to have been the catalyst for some of the desertions.

As he waited for passport to be stamped at the Libyan-Tunisian border, Ghaith said:

It feels very strange. This border represented this great iron wall, that I tried so long to cross and eventually I got caught. It's not like anxiety; it's some other feeling that starts churning inside your heart as I'm reaching this border ... Every time I hear a Libyan accent I think of the interrogators in the prison. So it will be very interesting to see Libya in a different light.

He described scenes on the approach to the border:

Along the road you see many families stopping by these young kids selling Free Libya memorabilia - T-shirts, signs, bracelets, all decorating their cars before reaching the border.

There's some sporadic shooting; I presume celebratory fire. You have militia dressed in jeans, cowboy hats [and] carrying guns. There are signs along the border, kind of graffiti [saying]: "Welcome all the Libyan families who are coming back." There is a sense of euphoria amongst the families ... These are families who had to leave during the fighting. So there is a festive feeling, [but] of course there is an anxiety among kids because of the shooting on the other side.

On the gunfire Ghaith said: "They are militia men, they are kids, probably still pumping with adrenaline from all the fighting. Of course there will be shooting. They are shooting now trying to organise the traffic. I come from Iraq. I saw the chaos that took weeks, months, basically years. In Iraq eight years on and there is still chaos. [In Libya] two weeks after the fall of the regime there are rebels and there are people dressed like police who are stamping passports."

4.20pm: Luis Moreno-Ocampo of the international criminal court has requested Interpol issue a red notice to arrest Muammar Gaddafi, the ICC has just announced.

Gaddafi is wanted for crimes against humanity of murder and persecution. Moreno-Ocampo said: "Arresting Gaddafi is a matter of time."

An Interpol red notice seeks the provisional arrest of a wanted person with a view to extradition or surrender to an international court based on an arrest warrant or court decision. Moreno-Ocampo is also requesting them for Saif al-Islam, Gaddafi's son, and Abdullah al-Senussi, his former spy chief.

4.58pm: Al Jazeera is reporting that the NTC's Mahmoud Jibril is "sitting in the prime minister's chair" in Tripoli.

5.04pm: The rebel NTC are to give a news conference in Tripoli in a few minutes.

5.06pm: Russia believes Syrian president Bashar al-Assad could hold on to power despite the revolt in the country and Moscow hopes to build bridges between the government and opposition, the Kremlin's envoy to the region said on Thursday.

5.07pm: Britain says its top diplomat in Libya has met with Abdel-Hakim Belhaj, the military commander in the Libyan capital who alleges MI6 and the CIA had a role in his 2004 rendition.

A Foreign Office statement says Dominic Asquith, Britain's acting special representative in Libya, met with Belhaj today in talks "focused on the security situation in Tripoli".

Belhaj also raised concern over the role British and US intelligence may have played in his 2004 detention in Bangkok and transfer to Tripoli.Belhaj previously led the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, a now-dissolved militant group opposed to recently-ousted dictator Muammar Gaddafi. A British inquiry into the treatment of suspected terrorists overseas will examine his case.

5.10pm: The NTC's Mahmoud Jibril is addressing the media now in Tripoli.

5.10pm: Jibril is chairman of the Libyan rebel NTC. What the Libyans have accomplished is an unprecedented achievement, he says.

5.12pm: Our biggest challenge is still ahead of us, Jibril says. We have to forgive and carry out reconciliation and look to the future.

5.13pm: There are some cities in the south of Libya that are besieged by the old regime, Jibril says, while Sirte and Bani Walid have not been taken over yet by the rebels.

5.14pm: Perhaps some of our colleagues have forgotten that, he says. Libya is not yet completely liberated and we have not yet got back all our frozen money, he says. Some have tried to start the political game before reaching consensus on the rules or game plan, Jibril says. The constitution is not finished.

5.17pm: We are jeopardising stability with some of our actions, Jibril says, calling on all Libyans, especially young people, to unify. We must not attack each other or push each other away, he says – the battle has not finished yet. Once it has and there is an interim government and a constitution the political game can start. I promise I will not take a place in that fight, he says.

5.20pm: Tripoli's military commander, Abdul Hakim Belhaj, today personally demanded an apology from a senior British official for the first time since learning that MI6 had allegedly played a role in his rendition to Libya seven years ago, Martin Chulov reports.

Belhaj, whom the CIA sent to the Gaddafi regime seven years ago after seizing him at Bangkok airport, met with Britain's special representative in Libya, Dominic Asquith.

Belhaj's spokesman described the meeting as "civilised", but said Asquith had declined to apologise, citing the Gibson inquiry, which is investigating the MI6 claims, which emerged from an archive of correspondence between Libyan spies and MI6 found in a ransacked spy headquarters in Tripoli.

A diplomatic source in Tripoli said: "The special representative said that we take these claims very seriously and explained that last year the PM set up the Gibson inquiry to examine whether the security services were involved in the improper treatment of detainees overseas, including rendition. He told Belhaj that the inquiry has announced that it will look carefully at these latest allegations."

Libya

• Tripoli's military commander, Abdul Hakim Belhaj, personally demanded an apology from a senior British official for the first time since learning that MI6 had allegedly played a role in his rendition to Libya seven years ago (see 5.20pm).

• Mahmoud Jibril, the chairman of the Libyan rebel NTC, gave his first press conference from Tripoli. He emphasised that the war was not over, told Libyans they had to stay unified, and said it was too soon for the "political game" to start. He repeated an earlier promise to serve only in an interim capacity and not to stand in future elections (see 5.17pm).

• Rebel fighters clashed with Gaddafi loyalists around the fugitive leader's two strongholds of Sirte and Bani Walid. On the east of Sirte rebel positions were shelled (see 1.25pm), and loyalists fired at least 10 rockets from Bani Walid (12.27pm). Nato bombarded Sirte and Waddan, in the south, yesterday.

Syria

• Security forces conducted random arrests and detentions across the country, activists reported, and demonstrations took place in various cities and towns. There were continuing reports of military defections, but the Guardian's Nour Ali said these did not yet pose a threat to the regime of president Bashar al-Assad (see 3.48pm) A video address by the opposition Free Officers' Movement called on the international community to impose a no-fly zone over Syria to protect civilians (see 9.07am). Activist group Avaaz put yesterday's death toll at 34.

• Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, called on Assad to talk to the opposition and said a military solution was "never the right solution" (see 3.05pm). Russia said Assad might well hold on to power and said it wanted to build bridges between the government and opposition (see 5.06pm).

Egypt

• There was some good news for the prosecution at the trial of former dictator Hosni Mubarak and his former interior minister Habib el-Adly. A police witness testified that Adly and his aides ordered the killing of protesters and that he saw police with automatic weapons (see 2.56pm). Other witnesses have failed to implicate the defendants. Another security force witness told the court his superiors told troops to drive armoured vehicles into peaceful protesters, but said he never heard orders to fire live ammunition.